Literary Birthday – 21 December – Rebecca West

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat; or a prostitute.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

It’s the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.

The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

Everyone realises that one can believe little of what people say about each other, but it is not so widely realised that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

It is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster.

She understood children, and knew that they were adults handicapped by a humiliating disguise and had their adult qualities within them.

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person’s mind.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

I write books to find out about things.

Dame Cicely Isabel Fairfield, known as Rebecca West was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. Her major works include Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, A Train of Powder, The Return of the Soldier, and the Aubrey trilogy of autobiographical novels.